Archive for 2011

In the exhibition (and book) titled The Air We Breathe, currently on view on SFMOMA’s second floor, artists and poets were invited to respond to the fight for marriage equality. This Friday afternoon we’re hosting a series of public discussions looking at the state of the campaign.

Discussions will cover political and cultural representations of marriage equality, the origins of activism around this cause, and the relationship between the legal, cultural, and political dimensions, among other issues.

Our One on One series features artists, writers, poets, curators, and others, from around the country, responding to works in SFMOMA’s collection. You can follow the series here. Today, please welcome media artist and writer Abigail Child.

Postscript:

I write the piece below and am reminded by a friend that Lux’s photographs verge on kitsch... More

We’re testing live video streaming from SFMOMA’s Wattis Theater, in advance of next Friday’s symposium The Air We Breathe – Marriage Equality: Status Update, which we hope to stream. If everything is going well today, you should see something in the video player around 2:30 p.m. I’m also trying out an embeddable live chat player, below the video. Anyone should be able to log in and chat–I’ll moderate comments as they’re sent in. Let us know what you think!

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER FORECAST. STAY TUNED FOR RESCHEDULED TIME!

We are artists and art workers of the 99%. We are struggling to survive and sustain our creative practice in an economy that does not value us as workers, that privatizes cultural institutions and that continuously defunds art programs–from public education to government grants. We are putting our creative efforts towards this movement and considering our role in the fight for economic and social justice.

Artist Sharon Lockhart reflects on the presence of the individual in the context of industrial labor through film, photography, and printed matter. For Lunch Break (2008), she spent a year at a naval shipbuilding plant in... More

Did you hear about the Wall Street rioting over the weekend? If you are outside of New York, you probably didn’t. For some reason there was a media blackout. Early Sunday morning people reportedly heard gunshots and explosions. Then there was talk of guns and tear gas. Police clashed with masked men. Eye witnesses even reported seeing angry mobs of people trying to kidnap what looked like bankers and Wall Street executives. Hundreds of people dressed in black were seen fighting police in the street near the Stock Exchange.

Early reports said Occupy Wall Street protesters were to blame — their camp over at Zuccotti Park is just two blocks away — and so some were confused as to what exactly started the skirmish. But surveillance footage confirmed one thing: that it was not the angry mobs at Occupy Wall Street, but actually it was a number of scenes being shot for the new Christopher Nolan film, The Dark Knight Rises.

If you had visited the waiting area of the directors’ offices at SFMOMA between 1975 and 1978, you would have encountered an exhibition not advertised on the museum’s official schedule: one of the 23 shows organized by Alberta Mayo under the auspices of the Manitoba Museum of Finds Art (MMOFA). Mayo, then assistant to Director Henry Hopkins and Deputy Director Michael McCone, directed her own museum within “the other museum,” turning her administrative space into the venue for... More

On this past Wednesday, November 2nd, Oakland continued its historical legacy by organizing the first General Strike in the United States since 1946 — the last one was also in Oakland. Fifty thousand people (or more) took to the streets and participated in many of the workshops, break-out groups, and strike blocs as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement and in defense of a city under attack by its police force and mayor. Solidarity marches were held in cities throughout the country, banks were closed in Oakland, the port was shut down, chil... More

Guy Fawkes Day has been celebrated for centuries in Great Britain, but it only became popular in the United States after the graphic novel V for Vendettawas made into a movie. In V for Vendetta (by Alan Moore), the main character is a masked anarchist who seeks to topple the fascist government ruling the Great Britain of the near future. The mask he wears is purported to be the face of Guy Fawkes. In the film, the masked avenger, named V, methodically assassinates and/or bombs his way through the key figures in the regime, hoping to inspire oth... More

Artist Sharon Lockhart reflects on the presence of the individual in the context of industrial labor through film, photography, and printed matter. For Lunch Break (2008), she spent a year at a naval shipbuilding plant in Maine, and the exhibition — now on view — examines the workers’ activities during their time off from production. SFMOMA is also distributing Lockhart’s newspaper, The Lunch Break Times, which relates stories about labor and lunch breaks. Every Wednesday, at NOON, we’re posting one of the articles here.………………………….

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A REAL BREAK FOR A MEAL BREAK ~ ~

Maryellen Herringer

Workers’ rights to lunch breaks are the subject of intense debate in the courts. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed, a... More

The Art Workers’ Coalition was an organization of artists formed in 1969 to demand artists’ rights, museum reform, representation of women and artists of color in museums, and for museums to take a moral stance on the Vietnam War. As we consider artists’ stake in the current Occupy Wall Street movements, the Art Workers’ Coalition provides necessary historical context. Copied below is the Art Workers’ Coalition’s Statement of Demands made in November 1970 in New York City. How relevant are these demands toda... More

It is hard for me to focus on much regarding the Occupy movement other than the two consecutive nights of police raids and brutality at the Occupy Oakland camp. However, the artists bloc of the Wall Street West movement is slowly coalescing, and plans are in the works for events, workshops, and discussions regarding the stake of artists in this mo... More

Artist Sharon Lockhart reflects on the presence of the individual in the context of industrial labor through film, photography, and printed matter. For Lunch Break (2008), she spent a year at a naval shipbuilding plant in Maine, and the exhibition — now on view — examines the workers’ activities during their time off from production. SFMOMA is also distributing Lockhart’s newspaper, The Lunch Break Times, which relates stories about labor and lunch breaks. Every Wednesday, at NOON, we’re posting one of the articles here.………………………….

~ ~ SAN FRANCISCO TREATS ~ ~

For many staffers at the Lunch Break Times, lunch is the highlight of the day. Sure, we enjoy dining out. We especially love the grilled skirt steak sandwich at Naked Lunch (504 Broadway), the banh mi at Saigon Sandwich ... More

After a terrific run at SFMOMA this past summer, during which we welcomed more than 350,000 visitors, The Steins Collect has now moved on to Paris, where it opened October 5 as Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso … L’aventure des Stein. Part of what I heard again and again about our exhibition is its appeal had as much to do with the stories as... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Today I spoke with Ann Magnuson, artist, singer, performer extraordinaire. She will be performing a David Bowie– and Jobriath-inspired piece, The Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice, on Thursday as part of Now Playing.]

What would I find in your refrigerator right now?

The most incredible organic eggs from Landers, which is this little desert town just north of Joshua Tree. There is a lady there who feeds her chickens all organic vegetables, and she nurtures them q... More

Artist Sharon Lockhart reflects on the presence of the individual in the context of industrial labor through film, photography, and printed matter. For Lunch Break (2008), she spent a year at a naval shipbuilding plant in Maine, and the exhibition — now on view — examines the workers’ activities during their time off from production. SFMOMA is also distributing Lockhart’s newspaper, The Lunch Break Times, which relates stories about labor and lunch breaks. Every Wednesday, at NOON, we’re posting one of the articles here.………&... More

A Collection Rotation–style post, from one of our curators who really does rotate the collection. Please welcome Assistant Curator of Photography Erin O’Toole.

Soon after the invention of the daguerreotype was announced in 1839, Paris was overtaken by a fever for photography dubbed “daguerreotypomania.” Made the following year, this well-known lithograph (above) illustrates the excitement with which the new technology was immediately embraced. Seemingly everybody was taking pictures of everything from every mode of modern transporta... More

Over the past month I have witnessed and participated in the local contingent of the now-global movement known as Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Together. The goal of this nonviolent movement, fueled by people in 1,497 cities throughout the world, is to challenge capitalism by protesting major banks, corporations, and the top 1% of people who benefit from our country’s current economic system. Through taking over public space, consensus-based general assemblies, demonstrations, direct actions, workshops, teach-ins, defense against police bruta... More

On a visit to SFMOMA back in 2007, I turned a corner on the second floor and found myself sharing the gallery space with a heaping blue mountain. I walked the perimeter slowly, curious, tentative, dwarfed. As I came to the front of the blue mass, I saw a wooden table, and seated at this table, a live human figure hunched over a book, hard at work.

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Michael Namkung is a San Francisco artist who uses movement to create his work. He’ll be at the museum on Sunday for Yerba Buena Family Day, during which he will perform one of his Wall Sit drawings and families will be able to take part in drawing gym activities. Free!]

Since neither of the artists was able to be here for the opening of the current New Work exhibition, I made these videos to introduce SFMOMA’s audiences to Tiago Carneiro da Cunha (Brazil) and Klara Kristalova (Sweden). Generally, we interview artists when they come into town, but I thought that a Skype video chat would be a great workaround. I was delighted that both artists agreed to essentially invite me into their homes for a conversation.

Interviewing artists is my favorite part of my job, hands down. Having gotten to know them through the objects they make, I find it priceless to be able to spend an hour or so talking through their ideas with them. Most of the interviews that we conduct are very formal — a talking head in front of a neutral gray background with a classic three-point lighting setup. Part of this is because when we started producing video content in the 1990s, the only people who made interview videos were professionals, TV people, and documentarians. Time... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Today we hear from Dominic Angerame, a filmmaker and the executive director of Canyon Cinema. Tonight Dominic is joined by filmmaker and Canyon Cinema cofounder Bruce Baillie for a screening of his film Quick Billy in the museum’s Wattis Theater.]

I’m sure some of you have noticed that a fair portion of my examples illustrating these “comedies” can best be described as harmless doodles — one-offs by bored adolescents, digital “folk” art by people otherwise preoccupied with their day jobs as graphic designers or computer engineers, or forays into digital text by artists whose main... More

Paul Klee has long been known as an artist’s artist. Though he was a seminal figure in modern art, he has never had the name recognition of a Picasso or Matisse. But he worked prodigiously (the catalogue raisonné of his work is nine volumes), inventing more worlds tha... More

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In honor of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Canyon Cinema, and the recent release of Quick Billy on DVD, Bruce Baillie and Canyon Cinema present the restored version of QUICK BILLY in all its four-reel, 16mm glory at 7 p.m. this Thursday, Sept. 29, in SFMOMA’s Phyllis Wattis Theater, followed by a reception. For more information, incl... More